I tried a new Android phone that puts some of the best smartphone cameras to shame

It’s been a few years since I was surprised by a smartphone camera’s zoom performance. With Samsung offering 100x zoom on its Galaxy S Ultra lineup, little has shocked me with smartphone cameras — until now.

The Oppo Find X8 series is the successor to the Find X7 series from last year, and alongside several other improvements, there’s also been a significant upgrade in one area: the 30x zoom. Oppo and OnePlus have great cameras at shorter zoom distances, and at a recent briefing, I discovered that we can now add the 30x zoom to the list.

High above the streets of London, the Oppo Find X8 proved it’s no slouch, and the Oppo Find X8 Pro set a benchmark that no flagship — that I had on me at least — could match. Here’s why it took me by surprise.

What makes the Find X8 and X8 Pro cameras special?

The Oppo Find X8 Pro Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

There’s one area that sets the Oppo Find X8 series apart from the competition, and that’s the parity in using a 50-megapixel camera for all three sensors (or four in the case of the X8 Pro). Although there are differences in aperture and sensor size, parity in the megapixel count ensures no noticeable downgrade in quality when changing lenses. As it turns out, it also gives it a lot of detail to work with in zoom photos.

Both phones feature a 50MP primary lens, with f/1.8 and f/1.6 aperture on the Find X8 and Find X8 Pro, respectively. This is paired with the same 50MP ultrawide lens with f/2.0 aperture, 15mm focal length, and 120-degree field-of-view, and the same 50MP periscope lens with 73mm focal length, 3x optical zoom, and f/2.6 aperture.

The Find X8 Pro gains a fourth 50MP camera with a 135mm focal length, optical image stabilization (OIS), and 6x optical zoom. In theory, this should make the Find X8 Pro better than the Find X8 at longer zoom lengths, but as I found out, the Find X8 is better — at least in this test.

Incredible performance at 30x and 60x zoom

The Oppo Find X8 Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

Every company wants you to believe that its hybrid zoom option is just as good as optical zoom, and while that usually leaves us wanting, the Oppo Find X8 actually is just as good in that respect. In fact, it might even be better than its Pro counterpart.

At this briefing — where I had plenty of time with both devices, but limited time with both side by side — I first thought the Find X8 was the Find X8 Pro. The zoom capability was impressive — extremely impressive — and throughout the evening, it was clear that there was little difference between these two cameras.

I don’t have the 30x photo from the Find X8 Pro to include in this post, but the above left image was captured at the next zoom preset: 60x. It shows the zoom performance doesn’t degrade above 30x, and the Find X8 was just as good as the Find X8 Pro in this test. I can’t wait to put these two side by side again.

How does Oppo match the competition?

The iPhone 16 Pro (left) and Pixel 9 Pro Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

With the Find X8 series set to go on sale globally after Oppo’s return to Europe this year, the real question is whether these devices can compete with the best of the competition.

To answer that, I turned to the four other flagships I had on me at the time: the iPhone 16 Pro, Google Pixel 9 Pro, Oppo’s Find X7 Ultra flagship from last year, and Samsung’s zoom king, the Galaxy S24 Ultra. Here’s how the specs compare between all five devices.

I’ve just completed a full camera comparison in New York City with three of these four devices, and the zoom results were particularly interesting. The Pixel 9 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro did very well overall, with the Galaxy S24 Ultra proving most capable in the zoom categories. The OnePlus 12 — from Oppo’s sister company — also proved capable with its 6x hybrid zoom capabilities. Only the Galaxy S24 Ultra camera has any decent zoom quality above 30x, with the Pixel 9 Pro limited to a maximum of 30x zoom and the iPhone 16 Pro limited to just 25x.

The Find X7 Ultra, on the other hand, is a fantastic phone that was only released in China last year. It also features four 50MP cameras, which are nearly identical to the Find X8 Pro, aside from the main sensor’s 1-inch size. There are slight differences in the smaller optical zoom range — the Find X8 Ultra has an awkward 2.8x zoom — but it has the same 50MP secondary telephoto with 6x optical zoom as the Find X8 Pro.

Our first test of the Oppo Find X8 camera zoom

The Oppo Find X8 Nirave Gondhia / Digital Trends

The similarities between the Find X8 Pro and Find X7 Ultra cameras are very exciting, as the Find X8 Pro is likely to be considerably more affordable. The downgrade in the sensor size will likely affect the primary camera quality — something I’m looking forward to testing in the full review — but the zoom should be identical, and the 3x optical zoom is far better on the Find X8 Pro.

It’s surprising just how capable the Find X8 and X8 Pro are against Oppo’s flagship from last year, particularly the Find X8. The step up for the supposedly “entry-level” device in the range is considerable, and from this limited test, it seems like Oppo has nailed the zoom camera at 30x, at least against its own devices. How does that compare to the competition, though?

First, let’s look at the two devices that won my camera test in New York City. The iPhone 16 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro are excellent all-around cameras, and the 5x zoom range offers a variety of lengths to shoot from. However, the iPhone 16 Pro is limited to just 25x, and the Pixel 9 Pro only goes up to 30x zoom despite all of Google’s software smarts.

This is no contest. In Mortal Kombat, this is what’s known as a flawless victory. Neither the iPhone 16 Pro nor the Pixel 9 Pro captures any detail. The photos taken are unusable, while the Find X8 reigns supreme. I was surprised by these results, so I redid the test, and the second set of images was virtually identical.

Of course, neither of these phones has a dedicated secondary telephoto like the Find X8 Pro, but what about the king of zoom, the Galaxy S24 Ultra? Given that it can be surprisingly useful at 100x, surely the 3x and 5x dual telephoto lenses will help it outperform the Find X8 series?

The Galaxy S24 Ultra has a better zoom than the iPhone 16 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro, especially at 30x, but the Find X8 series captures better detail at the longer zoom lengths. Granted, this is a limited test, and I think the Galaxy S24 Ultra is probably still better at higher zoom lengths, but this was genuinely surprising.

The 30x zoom on the Oppo Find X8 series blew me away, and rightfully so, as it’s one of the best 30x zoom implementations I’ve used on a phone. The first phone to be powered by the Dimensity 9400, the Oppo Find X8 could be one of the best smartphones of this year and next. Will it hold up? We’ll find out soon in our full review.